a time for everything
by milominderbinder
Summary: Kelso and Jackie never date, and it leaves the dynamics of the basement gang altered - at least, until Hyde is wandering around Vanstock searching for a girl's missing halter top and instead finds a sobbing cheerleader who he feels an instant, if confusing, connection to. (aka: how things would've changed if Jackie joined the gang in s2 as Hyde's girlfriend instead of Kelso's)
1. Vanstock

**a/n: so i've never written jackie/hyde before but i've been rewatching the show lately and have become SO obsessed that i just had to give it a shot! this fic will basically be rewriting episodes as if jackie and hyde had begun to date in season 2, as the summary explains. but they won't be full episode rewrites or scripts or anything - the whole story will focus on the jackie/hyde relationship developing, and while there will be a chapter per episode, some chapters will have very little to do with the episode itself and will focus more on 'missing moment' type scenes. other chapters will take lines/scenes from the episode and be closer to a proper rewrite. anyway, i guess i should probably just let you guys read and figure it out for yourselves!**

 **oh, and here kelso is dating barbara vansen, who is the girl hyde suggested he date instead of jackie in s1. but he's not as serious about her as he sometimes claimed to be about jackie, and he's still cheating with laurie.**

 **the title is from the jethro tull song.**

* * *

Vanstock was everything Hyde had dreamed it would be. It was muddy, smoky, loud, and within twelve minutes of arriving he'd already been offered drugs by three separate guys, two of whom were wearing Led Zeppelin t-shirts. This place was practically his mothership. There was also the fact that Kelso had managed to bring both his girlfriend Barbara and the girl he was cheating on her with, Laurie, which was just plain excellent entertainment. And that was before he even got to the mud-covered chick who was wandering around shirtless, looking for her lost clothes.

Yeah, this place was awesome.

"Hey man, whaddya say we help that chick find her top?" he said to Kelso once the rest of their friends had quickly wandered off. He punctuated his words with a slap to the shoulder.

"Nah," Kelso said, though he joined Hyde in watching the mud-splattered girls walk away. "I gotta stay here with the old balls and chains."

He glanced over to where Barbara and Laurie were sat in the back of the van, chatting to each other happily. Hyde followed his gaze, kind of annoyed. He'd been half heartedly trying to get Kelso caught for a while now, mostly because it was fun, but also because he really didn't like guys who cheated. He'd seen enough assholes step out on his ma, and even though he hated her most of the time too, it still hadn't been fun to watch. But he also thought Barbara was the most annoying chick on the planet, so he hadn't really been making as much of an effort to save her feelings as he probably could have. Still, Hyde decided it might be time to step up his game on ruining Kelso's fun.

"Y'know, Kelso, did you ever think about being honest with them?" he suggested, trying to keep his face straight. "Maybe they won't be mad. Maybe they'll _like_ the idea of sharing you."

"Man, that'd be great, huh? You think they'd go for that, cus -" He paused, realisation dawning, as usual, very slowly on his face. "Aw, no, you're trying to set me up, Hyde!"

"You never know if you don't try, man," Hyde insisted.

"Are you serious? Be serious, 'cus this is serious, this's been a dream of mine since I was a kid and saw the parent trap."

"There you go!" Hyde said, but was interrupted from saying anything else when Barbara and Laurie cheerfully stomped past, announcing they were going to the restroom. Personally Hyde would have paid money to see Barbara's face when she realised the 'restroom' here was about three port-a-potties surrounded by barfing drunk people, but right then, his annoyance at Kelso was taking precedence over his hatred of Barb. "Whoa, man, they're going to the restroom. You know what girls do in the restroom, right?"

"Uh," Kelso said, his face dropping into a vacant look. "I like to pretend like they don't do that."

"Not that, man, they _talk_."

"So?"

"To each other!"

It took a few more seconds, and then Kelso's face turned horrified.

"Oh my god." He flailed his limbs and took off after them in a sprint. "Girls, wait up!"

Hyde just shook his head. What a maroon.

* * *

With Kelso off trying to keep his girlfriends from talking to each other, Fez scouring the festival for candy, and Donna and Eric absorbed in their fight of the week, Hyde was pretty much left alone. He'd found this was the case quite often when it came to his friends. Basically, they were all morons, and he liked to think he wasn't as much of a moron as the rest of them.

So ignoring all of their drama, he set off to find his slutty topless princess a top - which she would hopefully not be too eager to put back on. Of course, it was slow going since he stopped first to smoke up with a couple of guys the next van over, and then got some popcorn from an extremely dubious looking vendor, and then went looking for somewhere to eat his popcorn where he had a good view of the girls of Vanstock and their scantily clad bodies. This seat came in the form of a log he found at the edge of the woods, which looked right out over the muddiest part of the field. Still a little buzzed from his joint, the combination of junk food and mud-splattered women was pretty much the best thing he'd ever experienced in his life

So of course, because when it came to him the world giveth and then immediately taketh awayeth, five seconds after he'd sat down, someone plopped onto the log next to him. And not just anyone. A chick who had her face buried in her hands and was crying, high pitched whiny little sobs which made his brain hurt.

This was supposed to be _his_ log. Hyde glared, but she couldn't see, so it was useless.

Hyde finally leaned over in annoyance and muttered, "Hey, you okay?" He paused, then added, "I only ask 'cus the incessant crying is kind of detracting from the fun of watching half naked drunk chicks run through mud."

The girl didn't lift her head, but let out another loud wail. Hyde watched uncomfortably for a few more seconds as she sobbed into her hands, before she finally stomped her feet and screeched, "My boyfriend is the biggest jerk in the world!"

Hyde's annoyed frown quirked into the beginnings of a grin as possibility suddenly called to him. He liked to think of himself as the master of the revenge fling. Usually it was girls looking to get back at their parents by slumming it with the closest thing Point Place had to a hardcore criminal, but he'd hopped on the _mad at my boyfriend_ train once or twice as well. He hadn't seen this girl's face yet but the rest of her was hot, and if she was hanging around a place like Vanstock, it probably meant she was easy. Maybe she wasn't gonna ruin his night after all.

Hyde put his hand comfortingly on her shoulder, opening his mouth to say something that would hopefully both make her feel better and send her into his arms. Only then the girl raised her head, and with one horrifying glimpse, he saw who it was.

"Jackie _Burkhart_?" he asked, shock filling his voice. "What the hell are you doing here? I thought muddy fields full of burnouts were cheerleader kryptonite. That's like, half the reason I came."

He couldn't believe the girl he'd just been thinking was hot was actually the most annoying cheerleader in school. He only really knew her name because Kelso had tried to ask her out last year and she'd turned him down in such an epic way that Hyde had been forced to have a little admiration for her, but that didn't change the fact that every time her shrill voice could be heard coming down the corridor he seemed to break out in an instant migraine.

She looked back at him, seeming just as horrified as he was.

"Oh great!" she cried. "Not only do I break up with my moron boyfriend and get abandoned at a stupid stinky festival that I never wanted to come to in the first place, but now the only person I know here is Steven Hyde! I thought you went to Juvie, anyway?"

Hyde pulled his hand off her back and scowled, but didn't actually move away from her on the log they were perched on, instead just glaring from behind his sunglasses.

"I did _not_ go to juvie," he informed her, before pausing and grudgingly adding, "Well, not this month."

He wanted to leave now that he'd realised it was actually the devil sat there in a tiny floral dress, but something stopped him - something buried way, way deep inside him, which managed to break through his usual shell of emotionlessness and inspire some modicum of pity for the ball of pure evil which was sobbing next to him.

He gritted his teeth and managed to say - "Uh, you say I'm the only person you know here? You come up with your boyfriend?"

He kind of expected Jackie to break into a fresh wave of sobs, as she had every other time he'd spoken, but instead that seemed to dry her eyes up. She gritted her jaw and stared into the distance with the scariest expression he'd ever seen on a ninety five pound pink-ribbon-adorned sophomore.

" _Ex_ -boyfriend," she corrected him quickly. "I never even wanted to come here, yanno! _Chip_ talked me into it. He said it would be super romantic, but instead it's dirty and everyone looks high and the only reason he even asked me is because he wanted to do it in the back of his van! So I told him I'm a virgin and then he said that if I wasn't gonna sleep with him there were plenty of slutty girls around who would, so I broke up with him! I mean, I'm Jackie Burkhart. I don't make it with guys I've only been dating three weeks, and especially not in the back of some stinky van where a bunch of hippies are probably watching us."

Oh god, there it was again. Despite how annoying ninety nine percent of her words were, there was that little twinge in the pit of his stomach which could so easily be indigestion but which Hyde knew was really _pity_. He knew he was far from an angel with the ladies, but he at least tried to be respectful of what they wanted - and then he respectfully only dated the ones who wanted it all.

Almost of its own accord, his hand moved back to the space between Jackie's shoulder blades, patting her a little. He'd never been the comforting type, but he thought she might kind of need it right then.

"Uh, look, man, I'm sure it'll be alright," he said awkwardly, clearing his throat and pushing his glasses further up his nose. "He, uh, he sounds like an ass. There's gotta be some pea brained football player out there who'll treat you right, anyway."

Jackie sniffled and looked over at him a little hopefully.

"You think?" she asked, before her face fell again a moment later. "Oh, whatever, it's not like it matters now. I mean, I don't even have a way to get home! And I don't know anyone else here."

Still staring at Hyde, she suddenly widened her eyes, and her lips slipped into a trembling pout which should have in no way been as cute as it was. Hyde opened his mouth to tell her tough cookies and then take off to find his topless chick, he really did, only somehow, different words started coming out without him asking them to.

"Me and my friends can give you a ride back to Point Place tomorrow, if you want." He was immediately horrified at himself, trying to snatch the words back out of the air with no success. He didn't want a two hour car ride with Jackie Burkhart! She probably wouldn't stop talking the entire time and then he'd go insane from her shrill voice and end up killing her. But at the same time - he couldn't exactly leave her stranded here when she didn't know anyone and where any number of creepy guys could be hanging around. Not that he cared, but she was just so _little_.

Maybe he did have a bit of one of those conscience things everyone was always going on about.

"Oh, Steven!" she said, her pout changing into a wide smile which once again looked far cuter than it should have. "Thank you. Y'know, for a poor person, you're not so bad."

Okay, yeah. That was the bitch he knew.

Yet somehow, Hyde found himself smiling.

"You want some popcorn?" he offered, holding the box out to her as he went back to watching the dancing girls in the field. His other hand didn't move from where it was still resting on her shoulderblades.

* * *

"- so then Linda said that just because Bobby broke both his legs was no excuse for me to show up to Homecoming alone, because obviously I should have had a back-up date because all the most popular girls did so if I didn't have a date that obviously meant I wasn't popular and if I wasn't popular there was no way I could be on the cheerleading squad anymore, which is totally fair but she was still such a bitch about it that of course I told her I had a date, but I didn't so I had to go and find one with only two days notice! Well, Chip had been after me for a while and I kept saying no 'cus, y'know, he has those yucky sideburns - no offence - but I didn't exactly have a whole lot of options and he is in a band which I guess makes up for the sideburns so I finally agreed to go out with him and he took me to homecoming and I got to stay on the cheer squad and he was a pretty good dancer so I guess we just kept dating after that, which was fine I guess except his band plays really lame music so we didn't have much to talk about and all he ever wanted to do was feel me up - which like, hello, I get it, I'm sexy, but he wasn't even good at it! So I guess I'm probably better off without him anyway, in the long run, but the long run doesn't change the fact that he was a total jerk and I'm totally gonna tell everyone at school that he has a micropenis because nobody is a jerk to Jackie Burkhart and -"

Hyde had lost track of time, but he was pretty sure it was safe to say Jackie had been talking for around _three million years_. He was suddenly regretting his first foray into having a conscience, because it had gotten him stuck here, listening to the devil. Surely she'd be fine if he left her on her own. He'd been worried about what would happen if some creep out there tried to get a hold of her, but he was now thinking she had the power to kill a man with only a single high pitched squeal of her voice. He certainly felt on the brink of death.

"Jackie," he finally interrupted, pinching the bridge of his nose to try and stop the headache. It was dark now, and there were no more chicks dancing around in the mud in front of him, but they were still sat on that damn log, and she was still talking. "For the love of _god_ , please stop talking."

Jackie glared at him, pausing for a moment -

And then launched right back into her never ending speech.

"So the furthest we ever got was second base this one time in his van parked behind the bleachers after cheer practice but I swear, I just felt like I was being pawed by a big dumb animal or something! Well, I told him that and it did not go over well, but he still -"

"Jackie," Hyde interrupted again, more forcefully this time. Clearly telling her to shut up had no effect, but another, more innovative idea came to mind. If nothing else, he was pretty sure it'd get rid of his headache. "Hey, Jackie - you ever smoke weed?"

* * *

She'd turned him down at first, with some whole big speech about how she was a _cheerleader_ and _rich_ and a _nice girl_ and other stupid crap like that, but clearly she was a little bit curious, because it hadn't taken much effort to convince her. And so they found themselves laying on the floor in front of their log, Jackie mindlessly giggling her head off as Hyde took another drag off the half-finished joint.

So it had gotten her to stop talking, but she was still filling his ears with endless high pitched sounds. Luckily, Hyde was no longer as bothered by that as he had been before.

Ah, there was a reason this was his favourite hobby.

* * *

The sky was so rich in its darkness and the stars so brightly distinct in each of their million places that it seemed they hung a little too heavy in the air, too tangible to such a small creature down on such a small planet who never should have even been able to know them, let alone feel them so close that it seemed at any moment they could tumbling straight down out of the sky. Jackie had never really looked at the stars before - or, she'd looked, but she hadn't seen. She hadn't felt. She hadn't had nothing at all separating her from the heavens, and in that moment, it almost seemed like too much. She didn't usually think about the night sky unless it was bedazzled on a designer handbag.

She'd bet Hyde thought about stuff like that, though. Not that she really knew him all that well, or had ever even spoken to him before that night, but he had that kind of look like he was clever, and plus he apparently did a lot of drugs which must lend itself to contemplation. She thought. (Jackie had not done a lot of drugs, so she wouldn't really know.)

"So do you, like, think about the stars?" she decided to ask him, feeling a little dizzy as she shuffled about on her back on the leafy ground. She somehow didn't care that she was getting dirt all over her cute new dress.

Hyde shot her this look like she was being weird, but he shuffled down so he was still lying next to her and passed the joint back over. It was nearly burnt down to embers now but Jackie took another drag off it, coughing a little.

"Stars as in mysteries of the cosmos, or stars as in capitalist Hollywood brainwashers?"

Jackie didn't understand most of that sentence. So she didn't respond, choosing instead to just keep staring up at the sky and spluttering her way through a final puff of the joint.

Hyde didn't seem to mind her lack of response. Somehow she kind of liked him in that moment. It was weird. But she turned her head on the forest floor to stare over at him, examining his profile in the starlight as he keeps on staring up, and with his glasses off and his mouth quirked into a smirky sort of half-smile, she almost thought he looked cute.

"So, do you have a sleeping bag I can borrow?" she said next, forgetting what they'd been talking about a moment ago. She was having fun lying out with Steven, but the weed was making her foggy and tired and it was getting cold out too. Hyde turned his head and glared at her, but she just stared right back, eyes wide.

"No. I have _my_ sleeping bag, which I'm gonna sleep in myself, seeing as I brought it and it's _mine_."

Jackie pouted, and after a few short seconds of eye contact and lip quivering, Hyde's irritated frown turned to plain old angry resignation.

"Whatever, I guess we could share," he gritted out. "It's a double, so."

Jackie beamed, and Hyde rolled his eyes at her, and she was really high and he'd been really nice and the whole night hardly even felt real and for some reason all that added up and Jackie couldn't help herself - she leant over and kissed him. Just a peck which didn't even land square on his lips, was closer to the corner of his mouth, and it was over after three seconds anyway. And Jackie really hardly even knew him.

But a little zing of electricity shot through her anyway. Maybe it was the drugs - she told herself it was the drugs, and rolled back over, not looking at him.

He didn't say anything, so she didn't either. But it was pretty nice.

* * *

The next morning Hyde turned up at Kelso's van with Jackie by his side, and got some of the most confused looks he'd ever seen on his friends' faces.

"You guys all know Jackie from school, right?" he said, ignoring them all as he climbed into the back with Jackie following close behind him. "She needs a ride home."

Kelso just kept looking between Hyde and Jackie with his mouth hanging open and his brows furrowed. It was the same expression he got when he tried to watch a movie with subtitles, which Hyde couldn't help but grin at. But then Laurie and Barbara started giggling about something and Kelso's attention was immediately back on them again, the efforts of cheating taking up all his extremely limited mental power with none left over to wonder what Hyde was up to. The others seemed more interested, but Hyde just shrugged their looks off and settled down to sleep a bit more as Jackie climbed up front to chat with Barbara.

Hyde dozed for most of the two hour drive back home, but every time he swayed back into semi-consciousness it seemed to be to the loud soundtrack of Jackie's voice. Somehow in his half-asleep state it wasn't as annoying as usual. Or maybe he was just desensitised after a whole night of listening to her. She'd even talked in her sleep. (Which maybe explained why Hyde was so eager for a two hour nap. They'd been back to back in a sleeping bag all night, after all.)

Hyde didn't jerk awake completely until the van suddenly stopped, sending him lurching into the wall courtesy of Kelso's stellar driving skills. It took him a moment, but he realised they'd stopped because they were outside Jackie's huge house on the edge of town. He sat up, rubbing his eyes beneath his glasses and yawning a little, as she grabbed at her luggage and then climbed over him to get out of the back of the van.

"Thanks for the ride," she called towards the front of the van, seemingly to nobody in particular. Then it seemed like she was going to close the doors and finally, finally leave - only, she didn't. Not quite. First, she said, "And thanks for hanging out with me all night, Steven," and then she leaned back in lightning quick and dropped a kiss onto his cheek.

And then she really was gone, and Hyde was left with just his moron friends again.

"Okay, what the hell was that?" Eric squeaked, as Donna gawped, her opened mouthed expression almost a grin but not quite, something more accusatory than that. There was silence from the front but Hyde knew Barbara and Kelso were staring at him too. Hyde scowled.

"Oh, get bent," he said, turning away from them all. "She got totally ditched there and she's just grateful I got her high, that's all."

But he couldn't help but notice that where Jackie's lips had touched him, his cheek felt awfully, _awfully_ warm.

* * *

 **a/n: i know this fandom isn't as big as it used to be since the show's pretty old so it'd mean the world to me if you've read this far if you'd leave a review! even if it's just a couple words or something - i'd just love to know i have anyone other than me interested. i'll try to get the next chapter up soon!**


	2. I Love Cake

**a/n: thanks so much to everyone who reviewed! i'm really glad people other than me are interested in this story :"D i'm going camping for the weekend but i'll try to get the next chapter up as soon as i get back, early next week!**

* * *

So three days after Vanstock, Hyde was hanging out in the corridor at school bouncing a basketball off Fez's head as they waited for the bell to ring, and a little gaggle of cheerleaders walked past. Normally, he wouldn't have looked twice at them. He wouldn't have looked _once_.

But this time -

"Hi, Steven," said Jackie as she passed him, and she waggled her fingers, and then she was gone with her friends around the corner like it had never even happened. And Hyde felt a little shellshocked. Was that how it was gonna be? They were the kind of people who could say hi to each other in corridors, now?

People were gonna think he was selling her drugs or her dad was prosecuting him in court or something. Hyde wondered why he didn't really care.

After that, every time she saw him around school, she said hi. After a while he started saying it back.

It was hardly groundbreaking stuff. A simple exchange of generic greetings. He didn't know why the hell all his friends kept looking at him weird when he did it.

* * *

So it wasn't like he was sitting around thinking about Jackie all the time or anything. Sure, she'd occasionally pop into his mind and that was weird to say the least, but for the most part, a week after Vanstock, Hyde was putting the whole strange incident behind him. He had more important things to focus on.

Like the fact that on Friday, Kelso turned up dressed like freaking _Fonzie_.

Ah, it was a good time to be Steven Hyde.

"Hey, let's go to the Hub," he suggested that afternoon to Kelso, mostly so he could follow it up with - "We can see if you can start the jukebox just by hitting it."

* * *

Jackie didn't actually like the Hub much, but it was the only teenage hang out spot in their entire crappy little town. That was just one of many on the long list of reasons she knew she was destined for somewhere bigger than Point Place. She wanted to spend her time somewhere that didn't leave the smell of deep-fry grease clinging to her hair for hours afterwards.

Unfortunately, she also wanted a social life, which left her with little choice but to spend time at the hub. And so when she found herself bored on a Friday afternoon once school let out, the Hub was where she headed. She was hoping some of her friends from cheerleading would be there and they could discuss the truly heinous dress June Jenkins had worn to school that day, because she was _bursting_ with bitchy comments about it. But instead, when she entered, only two of the tables were occupied. One was taken up by a couple of middle school aged girls.

And at the other, all by herself, sat Donna Pinciotti.

As she started to walk towards her, Jackie didn't know what she was doing. Donna Pinciotti was far too tall and far too redheaded to be really popular, and bar the one time Donna had thrown a basketball at Jackie, they hadn't really interacted until the trip back from Vanstock the week before. But - there was nobody else around. And Donna looked really blue as she slurped her soda, lips puckered unhappily around the straw. So maybe Jackie could try and fit in her good deed for the day.

"Hi, Donna!" she said with as much pep as she could muster, flinging herself down onto the bench seat across the little table from Donna. "Where're all your big dumb guy friends?"

Donna looked highly alarmed, and for a few moment, she didn't respond. Then, cautiously, she said - "I don't know. I think they're with _Eric."_

She practically spat the name out, glaring down at the plastic lid of her soda.

"Eric would be your weird scrawny boyfriend, right?" Jackie checked. She really wasn't sure - she tried to make a habit of ignoring anyone who seemed like they might be in the AV club. But at the same time, it was such a small town that she couldn't _really_ not at least have a vague idea of who in their school was going out with who.

"Yeah, that's him," Donna grouched. Jackie _hmm_ ed, leaning forwards and resting her elbows on the table so she could stare Donna straight in the eyes.

"You seem a lil' upset there," she said. "Are you and scrawny Eric having problems?"

Donna glared at Jackie the way she'd been glaring at her soda cup a moment before.

"Oh, why do you even care?"

"Well, you just look like you could use someone to talk to! And you know, I happen to be very wise in the ways of love."

Donna snorted, which Jackie was a little insulted by - she was _totally_ wise. She'd had a subscription to Cosmo since she was thirteen. She knew everything there was to know about relationships.

"Yeah, thanks but no thanks. I have plenty of people to talk to," Donna said. Jackie looked around. Donna was sat by herself in the hub, not counting those two random middle school kids, and Jackie was pretty sure she'd never even seen Donna hang out with another girl. And everyone knew guys were useless for talking to - only other girls were really qualified to talk about boyfriend troubles.

"Uh, like who?"

Donna opened her mouth to reply, but then didn't say anything - a moment later, a look of horrified realisation came over her face.

"Oh my god, all my friends are completely moronic guys," she said. Jackie grinned, triumphant.

" _So,"_ she said, leaning over to steal one of Donna's fries. "What's the problem?"

* * *

"- and then he punched me in the arm and said, _man."_

"Oh my god, what a horrible disaster!" Jackie gasped. Donna's story truly was tragic, a cautionary tale of emotionally stunted teenagers who had clearly never read _Cosmo_ in their lives. Jackie was on the edge of her seat, staring wide-eyed at Donna. "Well, go on!"

"I guess I like, totally screwed things up," Donna said, stuffing a few fries into her mouth. Jackie chose to ignore the grossness of her eating habits for the moment because she was clearly traumatised. "Cus ever since I said 'I love you' he's been acting _so_ weird."

"Okay, wait a second, I'm a little confused." Jackie frowned, something she usually tried never to do in case it gave her premature crow's feet. "Why did _you_ say I love you?"

"Because I love him?" Donna said, in a _duh_ tone of voice. Jackie scoffed, shaking her head.

"Donna, that's got nothing to do with it!" Honestly, Donna was so lucky Jackie had forced her to have this conversation - she clearly didn't have a _clue_ how love worked. "You are way too young to be saying I love you!"

"Shut up, I'm older than you!"

"Yeah, but _I_ didn't tell your weirdo boyfriend I loved him, did I?" Jackie paused to feel a little smug for a moment, before continuing, "Okay look, Eric clearly doesn't know how to handle that kind of thing. You probably just scared him off. All you can do right now is play it cool for a while, turn _down_ the emotional heat, and Donna, god willing, he'll forget you threw yourself at him."

Jackie took a sip of Donna's pop as she waited for Donna to process her words of wisdom.

"I know it sounds impossible, but what you just said actually makes _sense_."

"Well, duh, I'm a genius," Jackie said, raising an eyebrow. "I'm surprised you don't know that about me already."

Donna looked skeptical, but Jackie didn't mind. Some people just weren't yet ready to open their hearts to her overwhelming brilliance.

* * *

So Hyde's suggestion of heading to the Hub had mostly been a burn on Kelso, but despite that, the two of them ended up there anyway. It was kind of inevitable when the only other place they could go was Forman's basement, and there were no fries there.

Hyde was prepared for a pretty standard afternoon at the hub - sip lukewarm soda, get yelled at by Mike for loitering without buying enough food, make fun of Kelso for six or seven hours. Only when he pushed open the door, it became apparent they had slipped into an alternate dimension and nothing would ever be standard again.

Because there was Donna - and she was hanging out with _Jackie._

"Hey," Hyde said cautiously, slowly sliding into a seat at their table. Both the girls looked at him, and it was somehow incredibly scary. It had been weird enough when _he_ was talking to Jackie, but now his friends were too? Something wasn't right with the world this week.

"Hey," said Donna, and immediately stood up. "Well, I gotta go. Uh, Jackie, thanks for the talk. It was - actually _helpful."_

She seemed just as shocked to be saying that as Hyde was to hear it, but Jackie just beamed.

"You're welcome, Donna! Now remember - be _cool."_

Hyde wondered if their conversation had been about Forman and Donna's disaster of the week, which he himself had been trying to solve from Forman's end, but before he could ask Donna she'd taken off out the door. So instead he stared at Jackie from behind his sunglasses, trying to figure out whether she'd been replaced with a government robot this week or something. Of course, she did seem just as annoying as he'd always found her, and he doubted technology would truly be able to replicate that level of shallowness. But it would help explain the fact that she was talking to people outside of the pep squad, and apparently being _helpful._

A few moments of staring later, Kelso came crashing into the seat Donna had just vacated, a newly purchased hotdog in hand. He nodded at Jackie, leaning back in his chair and fiddling with the zip of his leather jacket like he was trying to draw attention to it.

"Oh, I love the Fonz!" Jackie exclaimed, giving him a double thumbs up.

And Hyde burst out laughing.

Oh, that jacket really was the best thing which had ever happened in the history of Point Place. Jackie looked confused, Kelso downright pissed, but Hyde just kept on laughing. Maybe her complete lack of filter was good for some things - like burning Kelso, which was funnier every single time it happened.

"I am _not Fonzie!"_ Kelso said, flinging his hotdog down onto the table so he could cross his arms as he pouted. "I am so _totally_ Marlon Brando. Why can't anyone see that?"

"Uh huh, sure you are," Jackie said, her voice laced thick with sarcasm. Of course, Kelso was Kelso and didn't pick up on that, so the pout on his face was immediately replaced with a grin.

"Thank you, Jackie," he said. "Y'know, it's nice to have someone around here who appreciates my beauty. You, uh, wanna go make out?"

Flipping completely from his amusement of a few moments ago, Hyde found himself oddly annoyed. He was already kind of pissed that Kelso was still stringing along Barbara while seeing Laurie on the side, and now he was hitting on even _more_ girls? Hyde wasn't exactly surprised, because that was just who Kelso was, but - well, somehow it didn't sit right with him. He was sure it had to be because of the cheating thing, and nothing to do with _who_ Kelso was hitting on. Because he found Jackie annoying as hell.

(Even if he did feel kind of weirdly protective of her since he'd seen her cry at Vanstock. He had no idea _why_ he felt protective. He didn't even like her. But - she was just so - she was - she was really small! It was totally natural to want to protect cute little things. Even if they had ridiculously annoying opinions and a very shrill voice. Right?)

"Okay, first of all, _ew_!" Jackie said. "And second of all, I thought you were with Barbara."

Jackie crossed her arms over her chest and looking judgmentally across at Kelso. Hyde suddenly felt way too aware of the fact that he hadn't even spoken this entire conversation. Jackie wasn't even looking at him anymore. Which didn't bother him. But still felt kind of weird.

"Well, yeah, but I'm not with her right _now,"_ Kelso said, gesturing around the Hub - which sure enough was Barbara free. Jackie just scoffed, and then Kelso added, "Hey, if you don't wanna make out today, just come hang out in Forman's basement whenever you change your mind."

And right then - that was when Jackie looked at Hyde again. He found himself oddly pleased, even though he thought Kelso was a moron for inviting her over. The basement was their fortress of solitude, and Donna was the only chick allowed in with any sort of regularity.

"Well, maybe I will," said Jackie. "But _not_ because I'm gonna kiss you, Michael Kelso! Just because I think your little gang could seriously do with some classing up."

Hyde sighed.

"Man, if she's gonna be coming over, we better invest in some ear plugs."

"Steven!" Jackie protested. Her shrill tone really only proved his point.

* * *

The next morning, Hyde was alone in the basement watching a re-run of _I dream of Jeannie_ and eating cookies when he heard footsteps on the stairs. Everyone else was out so he assumed it was Mrs Forman coming down to put on a load of wash or something - only then a tiny brunette in a floral dress appeared in his eyeline, and Hyde almost jumped out of his skin. What the hell was _she_ doing here?

"Hi, Steven," she said, and then immediately began looking around the basement. "Wow, this place really is a dump. I came here once with Kelso in like, fourth grade? That sofa already had tape holding it together back _then_."

Hyde glared, feeling oddly insulted on behalf of the basement which was both his home and his favourite hang-out. She wasn't exactly wrong about it being kind of crappy, but there was such a thing as _tact._

"What're you doing here, Jackie?" he asked instead of dignifying her criticisms with a response.

"Oh, I'm looking for Donna. I wanted to ask her how things went with Eric." Jackie came around to the front of the couch then, and flung herself down to sit in the space next to Hyde. She suddenly seemed way too close, looking at him with her big eyes. He hadn't realised they were different colours before. That was kind of cool, except for the fact that they wouldn't stop _looking_ at him. "Of course, if she took my advice it can only have gone perfectly."

"Oh yeah, I'm sure you gave her some priceless wisdom, straight from the pages of _Tiger Beat,_ " Hyde snarked, pulling his gaze away from her eyes and turning back towards the TV, though he was suddenly finding it very hard to focus on what Jeannie was doing.

"Shut up, Steven!" Jackie squeaked in his ear. "I _so_ have wisdom."

"Well if I ever wanna know how to get nail polish out of polyester, I'll be sure to give you a call," he assured her. Out of the corner of his eye he could see her glaring at him, but she still hadn't moved any damn further away on the couch. "Anyway, as you can see, Donna's not here, so…"

She didn't take the hint. Instead she just settled further back into the couch next to him, and turned towards the TV as well.

"I'll wait for her. I haven't seen this episode," she informed him. For three long seconds, she was silent. And then - "Can I have a cookie?"

Hyde sighed, and passed her the plate. He had a feeling it'd be simpler than arguing.

She talked the whole damn way through the episode, and then another one after that, and then kept talking until Donna finally turned up. It was annoying as hell.

Hyde didn't wonder until later why he hadn't once thought to _leave._

* * *

On Monday, when Jackie saw Steven at school, he was wearing the leather jacket. It had made Kelso look so much like Fonzie, but somehow, on Steven, it looked - well. Jackie felt her cheeks turning pink as he walked past.

She tried to say _hello Steven_ like she had been all week, but when she opened her mouth, all that came out was a squeak.

Yeah. It suited him. And the way he smirked at her as he walked past, she had a feeling he knew that she'd noticed.

* * *

 **a/n: i'm still feeling my way into their dynamic so lemme know what you thought of this chapter!**


	3. Sleepover

**a/n: sorry for the wait! there won't usually be this much of a gap between chapters, but this is a long one to make up for it ;P**

 **also, just to give you guys an idea of timeframe, I have this story plotted as a chapter per episode for the rest of season 2 and the whole of season 3. i'm hoping to get it finished by october at the latest, and then after that i might do a sequel following seasons 4 and 5, depending on how this one goes.**

 **anyways, hope you enjoy this chapter!**

* * *

It was one AM, and Hyde was in what now passed for his room at the Formans' house - aka the basement closet - stretched out on his cot, a half-smoked joint in one hand and a borrowed copy of _Brave New World_ in the other.

Ah, dystopian novels and recreational drugs. It didn't get much better in Hyde Land.

So of course, his peaceful evening was then interrupted by the sound of the basement door crashing open.

Now, this was Point Place. Boredom capital of the world. So Hyde's first thought was not that there were burglars breaking in through the back door, or _I'm about to be horrifically murdered_. It was more along the lines of - Fez had probably left some candy in the basement and then decided he absolutely had to have it at one in the morning, or maybe Laurie was sneaking in or out from either doing or planning to do something _naughty_ which he could use to blackmail her . So it was with a wicked kind of glee rather than a sense of trepidation that he crept out of his room to see who the intruder was.

One person he really hadn't been expecting it to be - was Donna.

"Going somewhere, big red?" he called out to the figure hovering by the door. She jolted in surprise and wheeled around to face him, before fixing him with a glare.

"Hyde, you scared the crap out of me!" she complained, voice low. He folded his arms and waggled his eyebrows in response.

"I could say the same to you, little missy. What'd'you think you're doing, breaking into my house in the middle of the night?"

"I'll give you three guesses," Donna said with a snort, eyes flicking to the stairs.

"Breaking in to see Forman, 'eh? Ain't you a naughty girl."

"Spare me, please," Donna said, rolling her eyes. "Look, I'm just gonna sneak up the stairs. Think you can keep quiet about seeing me?"

"Oh, I can keep my mouth shut," Hyde assured her. Which was not a lie - he was involved a number of things which the law required he keep silent about, after all. He took another quick drag off the joint which was still smouldering in his hand. "But one thing I can't keep shut is Red's ears, 'cus he will _definitely_ hear you if you walk up those stairs."

Realisation dawned on Donna's face.

"Oh, crap, I have to walk right by their room to get to Eric's!"

She pouted. Hyde had never really seen Donna pout before. It was an odd experience. He liked to think of her as one of the guys, and bar the disastrous crush he'd had on her for about a week the year before, that had never really changed. But he sure as hell couldn't picture one of the guys pouting like that.

Okay, well, maybe Fez. And maybe Kelso too if a chick was involved. But that was really just a sign that he needed to find better guy friends.

"Tell you what," he said, to try and appease the look on her face. "If you really can't wait six more hours to get your hands on Forman's scrawny bod, you can climb up there. All you have to do is get on that wall in the back yard, and then the trellis leads right up to his window."

Donna managed to pull an expression which was grateful, surprised, and suspicious, all in one.

"You sound like you've done this a lot," she said, raising a brow. "Is there something going on between you and Eric I should know about, Hyde?"

"Ha, ha," Hyde deadpanned. "You do remember what parents I grew up with, right? I've done my fair share of sneaking in _and_ out of this house in the middle of the night."

As usual, any mention of his parents to his friends immediately shut them up. Donna was a little better than the others, but he was pretty sure the rest of them were just terrified of any moderately serious situation. This worked out well for Hyde, who seemed to have an instant off switch for any conversation he wanted out of. Just bring up that whole abandoned thing.

"Er, right," she said. "Uh, thanks for the tip."

And then without saying anything else, she bolted out the back door again.

That was the upside of the basement, of course. Anyone who wanted to booty call _him_ didn't have to ninja their way up a trellis, they could just come right on in through the door. Not that he'd actually snuck any girls in, lately - truthfully it had been a while. Not since Vanstock. Though it was ridiculous to measure it like that because Vanstock wasn't the reason he hadn't fooled around with any random skankoids, it was just a coincidental event to mark the time by.

(Once in a while, Hyde thought about Jackie. But that wasn't relevant to anything either. Just an observation.)

Shaking off all thoughts of his recent lack of conquests, Hyde headed back to his room to smoke the rest of his joint and finish the chapter he was reading. Only about ten seconds later, something occurred to him. Donna was up in Forman's room, presumably because she'd felt the inexplicable urge to make him a man. What with the fact that Donna was more of a man than Forman would ever be, that was bound to go nothing less than hilariously.

Hyde stubbed out his joint, put down his book, and scampered up the stairs.

This, he had to hear.

* * *

Jackie awoke to the sounds of birds chirping in the trees outside and the bright sun streaming in through the gaps in her drapes. To most people this would be picturesque, but Jackie hated the sound of birdsong - we get it, it's morning, there's no need to whistle about it for an hour - and the sunlight streaming in through the gaps in those stupid drapes had woken her up about three hours earlier than she'd intended to wake up on a Saturday morning. And of course she hadn't been able to get back to sleep, because that would've been too damn easy.

So she had time to kill, and her big empty house was pretty boring. Her parents weren't home, off on some business trip to New York, and the maid had weekends off. Jackie munched down cereal for breakfast, sat at the counter in the empty kitchen, and then headed back upstairs to spend as long as humanely possible picking out her outfit for the day. Given that she didn't have any plans with anyone, that was a more depressing task than usual, but she eventually ended up in her best denim jumpsuit and a pair of wedges which nearly doubled her overall height.

With perfectly curled hair and pink-polished lips, she felt about cute enough to kill.

Pity there was nobody to appreciate it.

Of course, lately, whenever Jackie had a thought like that, she noticed there was someone in particular she wished could appreciate it. This was entirely ridiculous - not only because she had no business thinking about him, or daring to try _liking_ him, but also because he was about the least likely person in the universe to appreciate anything she did with her appearance. He'd probably like her better if she stopped washing her hair and wore ripped jeans from the thrift store, if his own aesthetic was anything to go by.

But no matter how many times she told herself that, Jackie just couldn't seem to shake her feelings. It was verging on a _crush_ now, which was more ridiculous every time she thought about it. It was just that no guy had ever really treated her the way Steven did. He was a million miles and a sports car away from perfect, but at the same time, he just seemed so mature, and sure of himself, and even though he claimed to hate her and she was pretty sure she still _did_ kind of hate him, he also seemed to kind of respect her. He was different to everyone else in Point Place. And Jackie was getting pretty bored with the same, lately.

Okay, so maybe it was a stupid idea. But she looked damn good, and she didn't have anything else to do, and she knew where Steven always hung out. What was to stop her from just wandering past the Forman basement and having a quick peek to see if Steven was inside? If he wasn't, she wouldn't lose anything out of her day - that house was on the way to the Hub, anyway, if she took a slightly convoluted route.

Right. That was a good plan then. She'd go to the Hub, via a five second stop in the Forman basement for no reason whatsoever other than to conduct an experiment.

She just wanted to see she could get Steven to have any reaction whatsoever to how good she looked.

See, an experiment. That was practically science. And science was educational. Getting some extra education was never a bad thing, right?

* * *

So Donna hadn't done anything about the lingering vestiges of Forman's virginity, and on top of that, Red and Kitty had made it pretty clear that they were having money troubles. Hyde's day was off to a bad start. He didn't care that much about Forman and Donna if he was honest - although he supported any action which would get Forman to put a stop to his whining - but the Red and Kitty thing was giving him trouble.

They'd taken him in without any reason to, and he'd let them do it, despite knowing that the plant was closing down and Kitty was pretty much trying to support a whole family on her nurse's salary. He knew he didn't have anywhere else to go, but that didn't mean they had an obligation to him, and now all he did was sit around and eat their food and run up their bills and cost them money - money they didn't have. Steven personally knew that the world would be much better off if the capitalist system went down in flames and money ceased to have relevance at all, but he thought it might take him longer than a weekend to dismantle the entire American power structure. So until he managed to do that, he was gonna have to find another way to take a bit of the financial stress off his surrogate parents.

And that, horror of all horrors, meant getting a job.

So once Red had abandoned the morning paper, Hyde scooped it up instead and flicked to the Wanted Ads in the back. This was not selling out, he assured himself, as he scanned down through the part-time column. This was not selling out, this was _helping_ out, and he'd make up for it by completely exploiting whatever job he did end up in. He'd fight the system from the inside.

While making minimum wage.

* * *

After deciding to enter the world of gainful employment Hyde had been pretty sure his day couldn't get weirder, but as the world loved to prove him wrong, it wasn't long after that when Jackie turned up. She'd been over a few times now but usually with some semblance of an excuse, and not so early on a Saturday morning, so he felt pretty justified in being surprised when she came clattering through the basement door.

He also couldn't help but notice that she looked - well, _pretty_ was a bad way to describe a creature of pure evil, but it was accurate enough. She looked all soft and her lips seemed pinker than usual, drawing his eyes to them. She would've looked almost hot if he was into the whole fashionista look. Which he wasn't.

(But okay, she looked kinda good despite that.)

"Hi, Steven," she trilled, offering no explanation to why she was there but throwing her jacket on top of the record player and then taking a seat on the couch.

"What're you doing here?" he asked, his voice not coming out as gruff as he intended it to.

"Oh, nothing. I was bored."

"A great solution to boredom is to go hang out with the headcases who are actually your _friends_ ," he snarked. And if Hyde could admit to liking anything about Jackie, deep in the confines of his own mind of course, it was that comments like that really didn't seem to phase her. She just rolled her eyes and fluffed her hair and leaned a little close to him over the arm of the couch. He admired that amount of relentless confidence in a person.

" _Sooooo_ ," she said, dragging out the word in a wheedling sort of tone and ignoring what he'd just said completely. Hyde sighed, but just looked back down his paper. "What're you doing?"

"Solving world hunger, so leave me alone."

" _Steven_." Her tone of voice was irritated, and when he finally glanced up from the paper, she was sending him the flattest look he'd ever gotten. Hyde rolled his eyes, but figured it was probably easier to actually just tell her.

"I'm lookin' for a job, okay? Not that it's going well. But the Formans are kinda broke right now and since they're letting me stay here and all, I figured I could at least help out with some cash for groceries or something."

Jackie's eyebrows shot up, and she leant a little closer to Hyde.

"You're living here?" she questioned. "Why? Where are your parents?"

"Oh, they ditched me to go live in _none of your business_."

There was silence for a moment, Hyde staring down at the paper in annoyance and feeling Jackie's eyes burning into him. He figured she was gonna ask more questions, be a pain in the ass about it, everything typical of her personality. But instead, there was just quiet.

And then all of a sudden, Jackie said - "You know, I saw a Help Wanted ad pinned up on the notice board at the Hub yesterday. I think it was for that photo place downtown."

"What photo place?" Hyde questioned, kind of shocked by the abrupt change of subject (and the fact that Jackie hadn't attempted to wheedle out his whole life story). He wasn't exactly the photo taking sort, but the few times that Mrs Forman had asked him to pick up some pictures for her, it had always just been from the drugstore.

"You know the one!" Jackie insisted. "That little drive through place."

"I can honestly say I have no clue what you're talking about."

Jackie scoffed, looking unimpressed.

"My _point_ is, they're hiring. If you can't find anything in the paper, why not give that place a shot? I mean if they're advertising at the Hub they can hardly be high class, so it might be exactly your kind of scene."

Buried deep within her insult was a nugget of gold. Anyone posting for help at the Hub really couldn't have their standards set too high. And low standards was exactly what Hyde was looking for in an employer.

"Jackie, for once in your life, you may have had a good idea," he told her.

Jackie beamed like that had been a proper compliment, and nodded her head.

"Honestly, Steven, one of these days you're going to stop being surprised by my complete genius and learn to accept it."

"Yeah, I'm sure," Hyde deadpanned, but that didn't seem to phase her either.

"C'mon, I have my dad's car," she said. "We can drive to the Hub and check out that ad."

"See, the downside of that plan is that I have to go with _you_ ," Hyde said, but even as he spoke he noticed his body was getting up and walking towards the door behind her. Damnit. Now that he thought about it, his body seemed to do that a lot around Jackie - completely do the opposite of what his mouth was saying at the time. He really needed to get that under control.

But hey, driving to the Hub with her couldn't be the end of the world, right?

"You can drive but I get to pick the radio station," Jackie called over her shoulder. "WPFF is having a Peter Frampton hour!"

Hyde groaned. Okay, maybe it was worse than he'd thought.

* * *

So she made him drive and then talked the whole way there, which hadn't exactly been fun, but when they got to the Hub it turned out she'd been right. Next to the phone, pinned amongst all the other ratty pieces of paper - some of which he was pretty sure had been there since roughly the beginning of life on earth - was a short help wanted notice, with the Fotohut's number at the bottom.

As it turned out, Jackie was useful for something else as well. He stuck his hand into her purse and rifled around 'til he came out with a couple of dimes.

"Hey!" she screeched in objection, but he just flashed her a grin and punched the change into the payphone on the wall, dialing the number from the ad. It began to ring, and Hyde studiously paid attention to that sound rather than to Jackie pouting behind him.

"Hello?" a dozy voice eventually answered.

"Hey, man, I'm callin' about the job?" Hyde replied.

"Oh, the job," the voice said. "Wait - what job?"

"Uh, this is the Fotohut, right?"

"Oh, yeah man, yeah. Sure, that job. Uh, yeah, you wanna like, come in for an interview, man?"

"Sure, man. When."

"Whenever, man. Like, what is time anyway? You free in an hour?"

"Sure, man," Hyde said. He had a feeling he was gonna get on with whoever this guy was. Maybe there was hope for him in the world of employment after all.

"Cool, man," the guy on the other end said, and then there was only dial tone.

Well. Hyde glanced at the clock. It was only eleven in morning, and apparently he had an hour to kill. When he hung up his end of the phone and turned around, Jackie was watching him with her eyebrows raised expectantly.

"So?" she demanded.

"Got an interview in an hour," he responded with a shrug. Jackie grinned up at him.

" _Eee_ , that's great!" she exclaimed in her whiny high-pitched voice, which somehow didn't seem quite so annoying as it usually did.

"Yeah, I guess."

"Well, Steven, I think you owe me a thank you," she said, widening her eyes. Hyde just glared at her. " _Fine_."

Jackie flounced over to the corner booth that his friends usually sat in and beckoned Hyde over too. He didn't particularly know why he followed, but he had come in her car, and there wasn't much point in walking back to the Formans' only to turn right back around and walk to his interview. He might as well hang at the Hub for a bit. Only there was nobody else he knew there. Which made it totally acceptable to sit with Jackie Burkhart, didn't it?

"As my thank you, you can get me a soda," she informed him confidently. " _Diet_ , please."

"Jackie, if I rifled through your purse to get a dime for the phone, what the hell makes you think I have cash to buy you a drink?"

She scoffed and pulled out a dollar, shoving it towards him.

"I'll _pay_ ," she said. "You just have to go get it for me. It's the principle of the thing, Steven."

Usually Hyde would have objected to this on a few of his own principles, but right then, it seemed like it'd just be easier to do what she said. So he stomped the three feet back over to the counter and slapped her dollar down.

"Two sodas, man," he said. He didn't make hers diet. It was partly as a sign of protest, but mostly because if that girl thought she needed to be dieting, she was off her nut.

A few moments later he was back at the table and presented her with the cup, which seemed to make her ecstatic. She grabbed it away from him quickly.

"You know, Steven, I think you have potential," she informed him. "If you quit talking so much you could almost be like, a cool guy."

"You think _I_ need to shut up?" he asked incredulously. "I think I've said about three words to you today between all your friggin' monologues."

"See, the difference there is that I have interesting things to say."

" _Interesting_. Yeah, right, that's one way to describe it."

"It's true!" Jackie insisted. "What, you don't think gossip counts as important? It totally does, it makes for a healthy social life! We need to know what's going on in the lives of our peers, Steven."

"Jackie, trust me, you and I don't have _any_ of the same peers."

Hyde felt like that would've been a great time to leave, but he'd just sat down, and he had his soda, and truthfully, while he disagreed with ninety percent of what came out of her mouth, Jackie was pretty good entertainment. It was like watching a really shallow TV show or something. So he let her launch off into a rant about why it was so incredibly important to know just which cheerleader was hooking up with which jock, including ones from other schools he had never even met.

He figured he could at least let her yammer until he'd finished his soda.

* * *

Hyde's interview at the Fotohut took a grand total of one minute, before it was announced that he had the job and his incredibly stoned and wonderful new boss had left him alone with the keys. He hung around for a little bit, but without any clue what he should be doing and not a single customer passing by, he decided just to lock up and go home. He'd get a fresh start tomorrow. Or whenever the hell he was next expected to turn up for work - Leo hadn't exactly made that clear.

Hyde had a feeling Leo didn't know which day of the week it was to start with.

This really was the perfect job for him.

* * *

After Jackie had dropped Hyde off at the Fotohut she'd been left with a grand total of nothing to do with her day. But she'd left her jacket at the Forman house earlier, so she figured she could at least kill a few minutes going to pick that up, before she had to figure out something to amuse herself with for the rest of the day.

Maybe she could see Steven again after his interview. Not that she wanted to seem desperate or anything - but he really was weirdly fun to hang out with.

She was busy thinking about just that as she strolled up to the Forman house, so it wasn't until the last second that she noticed Donna sat alone in the back of the van Jackie recognised to be Kelso's. Well, speaking of people she had a surprisingly good time hanging out with…

"Hey Donna!" she trilled, changing her route midway and plonking down in the back of the van as well.

"Uh, hey, Jackie," Donna replied, looking bemused but not outright hostile.

"Any more boy troubles lately?" Jackie asked. Donna shook her head quickly.

"Nope," she said, and there was a slightly dopey look on her face. "Not this week."

Well, that was just plain suspicious. Jackie's face lit up and she peered closer at Donna, sensing gossip in the air.

"Okay, give it up, what did Eric do to make you smile like that?" she asked enthusiastically.

Donna opened her mouth and then immediately shut it again, biting her lip even as a smile threatened to break through.

"Ah, I can't tell you," she said, and then seemed to catch herself, look turning a little more skeptical. "And why would I tell _you_ , anyway?"

"I thought we'd already established that you don't _have_ anyone else to talk to."

"Okay, but why do you _care_?" Donna pointed out.

Now there was a stumper. Why _did_ Jackie care? Okay, so it wasn't her number one world issue right then, but it couldn't be denied that she felt kind of inexplicably invested in Donna's love life. It felt different than her usual longing for gossip, too. Like maybe she wouldn't even want to spread it around school after Donna told her. This was an unfamiliar sensation for Jackie.

"Well, Donna, I guess I just think that for a big red lumberjack you're not a totally heinous person."

"Is that Jackie-speak for you _like_ me?"

"No!" Jackie quickly gasped. " _I_ am a cheerleader. Of course I don't _like_ you. But I'm just saying - you could be worse. And, as unanimously voted head cheerleader and official self appointed queen bee of Point Place High, I feel it's my duty to make sure every girl has at least one fellow female to spill all her girl-talk to! Otherwise you'd end up talking to guys all the time, and that would send the world seriously out of balance. I'm really doing you a service here, y'know."

"Okay, whatever," Donna said skeptically, rolling her eyes. "I'll tell you if it'll get you to stop talking about cheerleading." Then she got that slightly guilty-giddy look on her face again. "Uh, I slept with Eric last night."

"Oh my god oh my god oh my _god_!" Jackie squealed, clapping her hands together. This was big news. There were plenty of slutty girls at their school, sure, but Donna Pinciotti was not one of them, and it was always big news when not-one-of-the-slutty-girls did it. Jackie felt honoured to have first digs at this primo piece of gossip. "How was it, was it _amazing_?"

Jackie may have been a virgin, but she'd been around so much locker-room gossip from the other cheerleaders that sometimes she didn't feel like one.

"Yeah, I was asleep!"

Well, _there_ was one Jackie hadn't heard before.

" _Eeeeew_." She pulled back from Donna in disgust, but Donna just laughed.

"No, Jackie, we were _both_ asleep."

It took Jackie a moment to get it. By slept, had Donna really meant -

"So _nothing_ happened?"

"No, I mean, some things happened. But we mostly cuddled."

Okay, getting over the grossness of a moment ago, that was actually pretty cute.

"Wait, and he let you? You were in his _bed_ and he didn't just whine and beg for like two hours until you got so sick you just left so you didn't have to hear his stupid voice anymore?"

"No, I love him, he just like held me all night."

What was wrong with the world that Donna Pinciotti could find a guy like that, but Jackie was stuck with stupid Chip telling her that if she didn't wanna sleep with him he'd go find a girl who would, and by the way, she could find her own way home from Vanstock. And he wasn't even the worst of the guys she'd dated.

"Aww," she eventually cooed, staring at Donna slightly wistfully. "No guy has _ever_ done that for me."

"Hmm, guess there's some things that being head cheerleader can't get you," Donna deadpanned. Jackie shrugged.

"I remain unconvinced about that."

* * *

After she finished talking to Donna, Jackie went into the basement, half to see if her coat was in there and half to see if Steven was back yet. As it turned out, he was not only back, but had been back long enough to round up three other guys and fill the entire basement with smoke. Jackie recognised the smell and the thin paper cigarette in his hand as pot, though the only time she'd ever done it was with him at Vanstock. But going by his reputation at school she really wasn't surprised that he didn't need a special occasion to light up.

"Uh, hi guys," she said, and four incredibly surprised faces looked back at her. Well, Steven's face was slightly less surprised than the others. Maybe he wasn't surprised at all and his mouth was just hanging open from the drugs. Did drugs do that? Jackie really didn't know. She didn't even remember that much of their night at Vanstock, only how relaxed she'd felt - and, in the very back of her memory, that one tiny short kiss they'd shared which had turned all her limbs to jelly. But she was sure that feeling had just been from the drugs too. Completely sure. One hundred percent completely sure. (Okay, so maybe ninety-nine percent.)

"Hello, Jackie," the foreign guy Jackie had never spoken to before said. She ignored him.

"Steven, I just wanted to come and see how your interview went," she said, moving a bit further into the room to stand by the edge of the couch, one hand on a cocked hip, the other wafting in front of her face to try and clear some of the smoke.

"Great, man, I got the job," he said, all in one great relaxed huff of an out breath. Jackie grinned and let out a tiny squeal.

"Steven, that's great! And you know what's even better - you totally have _me_ to thank for it! And next time you can pay for my pop!"

And then Steven gave her the most amazing thank you he possibly could have, something she could cling to every time he insulted her or acted like he didn't want around - he said nothing. As if there was nothing weird about her suggesting that there would be a next time for the two of them hanging out.

Kelso, who was sat on the sofa next to where Jackie was stood, suddenly grinned like the cheshire cat and stretched his arms up above his house.

"Oh, Jackie, you don't have to pretend to talk to Hyde. I know why you're here. This tension between us is reaching _boilin_ ' point, baby!" One of his hands reached towards her ass, but she quickly hopped out of the way and made a disgusted sound.

"In your dreams!" she screeched. "The only reason I'd _ever_ come around here is to talk to Donna or Steven. And I know you have a girlfriend, you skeeve!"

"Actually, he's got two girlfriends," Hyde interjected cheerfully. Michael let out an insulted squeal, the likes of which Jackie had never heard a human being make before.

"Hyde! Jackie knows Barb, shut up! It's almost like you _want_ me to get caught sometimes."

"Gee, whatever gave you that idea," Hyde muttered. He looked towards Jackie, and all of a sudden, their eyes met. Jackie couldn't explain it, but in that one moment, she felt like there was some kind of connection suspended between them - something which had nothing to do with Kelso, or the other two guys in the room who she was ignoring, or anyone else. It was just her, and Steven, and the fact that they were looking at each other, and it felt _electric_.

And then Steven looked away, and it was over, and Jackie decided she should probably get out of there before the smoke melted her brain completely.

"Well, see you guys later," she said amicably, before adding with a pointed glare to Kelso, "Hopefully not too soon."

Then she waggled her fingers at Steven and retreated from the basement, feeling like the day she'd anticipated being so aimless hadn't gone too badly after all.

* * *

 **a/n: leave a review letting me know what you thought and i'll love you forever!**


	4. Eric Gets Suspended

**a/n: hey guys! thanks so much to everyone who's been leaving such nice reviews. i had a lot of fun with this chapter since it's much more linked into the original episode than the last couple - i really hope you guys enjoy it too!**

* * *

When Hyde first stumbled out of his room, bleary eyed and still half asleep, at eight in the morning, it was to find the basement abandoned but for a single tiny brunette figure who was sat on the couch with her back to him, watching cartoons.

Hyde stopped and blinked for a moment, suddenly wondering if waking up and getting dressed had just been a very vivid dream and he was actually still asleep. But no matter how hard he concentrated, Jackie didn't disappear. Or, the back of her head didn't, at least.

"Uh, hello?" he finally questioned after a good few long seconds of staring. Jackie's head immediately turned, and she smiled.

"Morning, Steven!" she trilled, not pausing for breath before carrying right on, "You know this door was unlocked? You really shouldn't leave your doors unlocked overnight, any old freak could just walk in!"

"Yeah, clearly," Hyde mumbled. Then, in a louder voice, he added, "Though I'm starting to doubt a locked door could stop you, Jackie."

He'd meant that as a dig, but Jackie somehow seemed to find it complementary and beamed at him.

"Thank you, Steven! It's true, I _am_ incredibly persistent."

"Hadn't noticed," Hyde snarked. "Can we get to the part about why you're here?"

Jackie seemed to deflate just a little.

"Oh." She shrugged. "I thought maybe you could drive me to school."

Hyde just stared. This chick. He didn't understand an ounce of her cotton candy filled brain. Maybe that was the reason he found himself thinking about her disturbingly often lately. It was like studying a different species. A riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in Jordache.

"Jackie, I don't even have a car," he said, as if that was the biggest problem with the scenario.

"You can drive mine!" She pulled out her keys and threw them his way; Hyde caught them on reflex.

He thought about it for a moment. The world was backwards lately, and he was really running out of times he could justify hanging out with Jackie to himself just because it seemed easier than arguing with her. Not least because as a general rule, Hyde actually loved to argue.

Well. He palmed her keys and stared across at her hopeful, irritating, ridiculously cute face.

He might as well do it anyway.

* * *

Every cheerleader in the history of cheerleaderdom knew that the locker room's primary function was not a place to get changed. Though it also functioned for that, the main function was simple - _gossip_. It was the place where they all talked about who had worn what fashion tragedy to school that day and who had made out with who at a party and what was going on with their boyfriends.

So it wasn't surprising at all to Jackie when she was getting changed after practice that day and heard Barbara, a few lockers down, talking about Kelso. As she shimmied into her sweater, Jackie shamelessly eavesdropped.

"Yeah, well, at first I thought the van was lame, but now he's put this really cool shag carpeting in the back, so I like it!" Barb paused for a moment, combing out her hair. " _And_ he said I'm allowed to help decorate. I can put in _one_ stuffed animal and _one_ bumper sticker!"

Jackie couldn't help but snort, and then decided she wasn't good at hanging back on the sidelines of conversations, so shoved herself forwards to stand in-between Nancy and Dawn, facing Barbara.

"That's _all_?" she said. "You're his girlfriend! And it's not like he's some grand prize or anything. You should be able to put in as many stuffed animals as you want. If I were you, I'd _fill_ that van with stuffed animals, so everywhere he looks he has a reminder of you - and anyone _else_ who comes in there has a reminder that he is in a _relationship,_ with a girl who likes stuffed unicorns and can probably kick her ass."

Okay, so maybe Jackie was a little carried away. But she hated cheaters. She'd never been in a serious relationship, but more than one of the guys she'd casually dated had fooled around on the side. And now, thanks to Steven, Jackie knew that Kelso was cheating around on Barbara. Unfortunately she couldn't _tell_ Barbara this, as they'd never been close, and it would involve bringing up the fact that she'd learned it from Steven Hyde, which Barbara would never believe. Barb would then conclude that Jackie _A)_ was making it up because she was jealous and wanted Kelso for herself, or _B)_ actually _was_ the girl Kelso was cheating with.

Since Jackie had no desire to sleep with Michael Kelso or be known as someone who did, those options were unappealing. But she figured she could help take him down in other ways.

She could tell her words had made an impact on Barbara, anyway. So Jackie felt pretty pleased as she grabbed her bag and flounced out of the changing rooms.

Count that as her good deed for the day.

* * *

So he was getting a B in a class he didn't remember taking and Eric was suspended - it was a good day. Hyde grinned across the table at Eric, who looked even more terrified under the Hub's fluorescent lights.

"Eric Forman's first suspension," Hyde said, and faked wiping a tear away. "I'm so proud."

"Wait, hold up, what'd he get suspended for?" Kelso asked. Donna glared at Eric and answered for him.

"Because he's stupid."

A look of pure terror took over Kelso's face.

"They can do that?"

Well, if anyone in this world had to be worried about it. Though shockingly Kelso always seemed to get better grades than Hyde. (Well, maybe it wasn't that shocking, since Hyde hadn't done homework in nearly four years.) Donna just rolled her eyes, still looking pissed at Forman.

"No - he told them it was his cigarette and that's stupid!"

"Please, Donna, stop, don't fall all over yourself thanking me," Eric grouched.

"I didn't need your help."

And then Hyde suddenly got it. Why Donna had been acting so freaking weird, when she was never the type to think failing or smoking or anything like that was cool.

"Yeah Forman, I think she _wants_ to get in trouble," he said, watching Donna closely to see how on point he was. He couldn't help teasing, too. "It's Donna's little cry for help. _Help me, help me_! Well we hear you Donna, and we love you."

"Oh, get bent, you guys are jerks."

And with that, Donna got up and left.

"Wait, why am I a jerk, I don't even know what's going on!" Kelso called after her.

Personally, Hyde could relate a little too well to what Donna was going through. Sure he was gonna be a jerk about it - if she didn't want people to be a jerk about it she needed to find different friends, surely she knew that. But he remembered watching the slow demise of his parents' marriage when he was a kid, especially the way it had ended with his dad just up and leaving. It hadn't been fun, and while they'd never been the best parents, he'd stopped getting even the littlest attention from them then. He could understand how she'd wanna act out to get some semblance of that attention back.

Forman, unfortunately, couldn't understand this, because he didn't have a clue what it felt like. And Hyde sure as hell wasn't gonna explain.

"This is great," Eric groaned, watching the door his girlfriend had just disappeared through. "Y'know, why'd I even take the fall - Donna doesn't care, and Red's gonna kill me."

"Relax Forman, he's not gonna - oh wait did you say kill you?" Hyde paused and laughed. "Yeah, you're right."

"Hyde, this isn't funny! On Red's list of screw ups getting suspended is right up there with, like, backing over my mom."

"Hey man, having a chick is about sacrifice!" Kelso suddenly interrupted. "Like Barabara, right, she wants to decorate my van with some of her girly stuff. So I tell her she can have one stuffed animal. In the glove box. See, sacrifice."

"Hey Kelso, remember how you used to put your whole fist in your mouth?" Hyde said. Kelso nodded. "Do it now."

"Damn, why's everyone so _crabby_ today?" Kelso asked. Hyde was saved having to answer by the door opening - in walked Barbara, followed by Fez who was carrying a very large suitcase, which he then set down in front of Barb when they stood in front of the table.

"What's in the suitcase?" Kelso asked dopily. Barbara smiled at him sweetly.

"My stuff for the van!"

Kelso suddenly looked horrified, and Hyde let out a quick laugh just from that look alone.

"But, uh, baby... remember how we agreed on just _one_ animal."

"Yeah, I know," Barbara said. "But then I got to talking with Jackie after cheer practice, and she made me realise, well - I want them all."

Huh. Hyde hadn't thought Barbara and Jackie really talked to each other. Not that he would've known, of course, because Jackie was nothing to do with him, but - yeah. He was pretty sure they weren't tight. He considered for a moment that Jackie had deliberately tried to make this situation go south for Kelso, and grinned just from the thought. That probably wasn't what had happened, but it would be a pretty great burn.

"But -" Kelso began, before finishing in the most glum voice Hyde had ever heard, "Look, we can talk about it in the van."

He grabbed the suitcase grumpily and stalked out the door, Barb close on his heels. Fez quickly took Kelso's vacated seat, grinning.

" _So_ ," he said, obviously changing the subject. "My host parents set me up on a blind date, and she has a friend for you, Hyde."

"Finally, somebody to love," Hyde joked. But somehow, he found he wasn't actually as excited as he usually was by the prospect of girls. Not that _dating_ was ever his thing anyway, but he always appreciated a chance to score.

Only right then, he didn't feel much like he appreciated it. He felt almost _annoyed_. And completely inexplicably, his thoughts drifted to Jackie.

There was no reason for him to think about Jackie right then. She was just some weird kind of benign cyst on his life at the moment. Always around, being just annoying enough to get attention but not annoying enough to bother getting her removed. Even if he didn't _hate_ having her around, and okay, she was kinda hot, but she also truly annoyed the crap out of him and they weren't anything remotely _close_ to the realm of dating. They were barely acquaintances. And there were no romantic feelings between them - just slightly confused, moderately un-hostile ones.

(That one kiss didn't count, Hyde told himself, because they'd been high at the time and he was pretty sure she didn't even remember it.)

So. There was absolutely no reason for Hyde to be thinking about Jackie and there was absolutely no reason for him to not want to go on this date.

Except of course for the fact that they'd been set up by Fez's crazy bible-thumping host parents so the girls were probably lunatics from Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow who Hyde would want to throttle, but he was so busy talking himself out of not wanting to because of Jackie, he forgot to not want to go for the _right_ reasons, and let Fez tell him what time to meet the girls.

* * *

Hyde had actually put on a clean shirt for his date, one with buttons and everything, but that was as far as he'd gone with preparations. And he'd left his sunglasses on. Fez, on the other hand, was dressed up to the nines, and tugging at his collar.

"I'm nervous," Fez said, interrupting Hyde's internal chant of _I wish I had said no to this._

"Don't be nervous, you'll get sweaty," Hyde said absently, paying more attention to his own weird thoughts than to Fez. Something about all this just didn't sit right with him, but he couldn't place what it was - he'd never been nervous to meet a girl and he wasn't nervous now, but he'd never felt _reluctant_ , either. He more had a _take things as they come_ attitude to life, and there wasn't much that knocked him off kilter. But right then, he felt pretty damn far away from _on_ kilter.

"Oh no, too late," Fez groaned. "I can't help it, this is my first official American date!"

"Well that's why I'm here Fez, to help you out, man," Hyde said. That and because he hadn't yet come up with a good reason to leave. He was actually still clinging to the hope that one of the girls would be the skanky rebel of his dreams, perfect to get his mind off a certain un-skanky square who he shouldn't have ever been thinking about in the first place. "Unless they're uggos, then I'm out."

As if by magic, that was the moment the Hub's door opened and their dates entered.

"There they are!" Fez said, sounding awestruck. "And they're not even uggos!"

"No, they're hot," Hyde agreed, staring at the girls.

"Yes, _and_ one of them is blonde! And since I set us up on this date, she is mine, right?"

Hyde shrugged. He didn't particularly care which one of the girls he was set up with, seeing as he was still having trouble mustering up any enthusiasm for this date. And he'd had a bit of a thing for brunettes lately anyway.

"Sure, Fez, whatever man," Hyde said, just as the girls reached their table. He stood and nodded in greeting to the brunette. "Hey, I'm Hyde."

"Patty," she replied, smiling.

This couldn't go _too_ bad, right?

* * *

Jackie lay back on her bed in her empty room, staring up at the ceiling with her eyes twinkling. The phone next to her was silent, but in her mind she imagined it wasn't. It was ringing, a shrill loud tone which caught her attention so quickly she had snatched it up before the second ring.

"Hello?" she said breathily into the phone. A deep, rumbling voice on the other end replied.

" Jackie, it's Steven."

"Steven!" she gasped. "Why are you calling me?"

"Because, Jackie, I can't fight these feelings I have for you any longer. I want to take you out." Jackie gasped. "On a date." She gasped again. "To _roller disco_."

Jackie squealed.

"Oh Steven, I just knew you were really the man for me! When are you picking me up?"

"Right now," he said, and all of a sudden her bedroom door burst open, to reveal Steven Hyde - sans sideburns and sunglasses, wearing a white puffy Romeo-esque shirt and his curls blowing in a sudden breeze. He strode over to the bed and picked her up in her arms as if she weighed nothing at all, and then slowly, leaning down -

 _BRING_!

Jackie's fantasy was interrupted by the phone actually ringing. For a moment, she just gaped. It _had_ to be Steven on the other end, right? She'd wished it so hard it had come true! She'd long suspected her unicorn poster had magical powers but this was the first time it had so obviously granted one of the wishes she'd told it. She wrenched the phone off the hook in a blur.

"Steven?" she gasped.

"Er, no," a confused voice replied. "This is Howie from Sparkle's Dry Cleaning. I'm just calling to tell a Mr Jack Burkhart that we were unable to get that soup stain out of his pants, but if he comes in tomorrow we can give him a full refund."

Jackie sighed. Oh.

"I'll pass the message along."

Then she hung up.

She was insane, right? That had to be the answer, she had to be going insane. She was actually expecting Steven Hyde to fall for her when most of the time he acted like he hated everything about her. Not to mention that her fantasies never got further than the part where he actually asked her out - but what if it happened in real life? She'd have to tell people, she'd have to tell the _cheerleading_ squad, she'd have to hang out in that stinky basement with him all the time. And there was a very slim chance he was ever going to become a doctor. It was Jackie's _dream_ to marry a doctor. All in all this crush of hers was a truly terrible idea.

But then, she supposed she couldn't help matters of the heart.

With a wistful sigh, Jackie lay back down on her bed and resumed the daydream.

* * *

So in a shocking turn of events - Patty was pretty much Hyde's dream girl. He'd been sure she was gonna be a boring, religious, bingo-playing, fruit-punch-making Catholic schoolgirl, like the chick Fez was chatting to across the table, but Patty wasn't like that at all. She was a rebel, like him. A rebel _with_ a cause. She didn't trust the government, she knew the moon landing was a fake, she quoted Malcolm X in everyday conversation, and she'd read 1984 _three_ times. She also had a tattoo. She'd met every single quota on his dream girl check list.

So why exactly was it that he still totally hated this date?

"I can't believe you like all the same bands that I like," he said, almost more to himself than to her. This girl liked all the same bands as him. He had _never_ met a girl who liked his music. That meant Patty was really cool.

"Yeah, I just like music that's passionate and rebellious... And really pisses off my dad."

It was almost as if someone had pulled that answer out of Hyde's head as what his dream girl would've said. See, Patty was _really_ cool. So why did he have to keep telling himself that, instead of feeling it?

They'd been talking for more than an hour, and Hyde had never once felt bored with what she was saying. But apart from her words, there was just - _nothing._ She was hot and smart and he was having no reaction to her at all, except that she'd be a pretty great friend. It was like she was _Donna_ or something.

All of a sudden, Patty checked her watch, and then shocked the hell out of him by saying, "Well, I have to go - I have a big test tomorrow. I've gotta go study."

Hyde was slightly confused. His dream girl did not go home early to study for tests. His dream girl didn't turn _up_ to tests. Studying was behaviour more characteristic of someone like - well, someone like _Jackie_.

"Study? You don't study, you've got a tattoo."

"Look Hyde, rebellion is cool and all, but I wanna get into a good college so I can fight the system from the inside." Huh. Another great answer. So why was Hyde only relieved that she wanted to leave? "It was nice meeting you though."

"Yeah, you too," he said, giving her almost a smile, but then quickly turning back to his soda without much interest. She stood up and turned to her friend.

"Mary?"

"Oh no, go ahead without me." At that, Patty left, and then Hyde got to watch in bemusement as Mary turned flirtatiously to Fez. "So Fez, my parents aren't home, wanna come back to my house? I have a hot tub."

Fez's face lit up like all the Christmases in history had just come at once.

"That would be _super_."

They left too, and Hyde just sat there, finishing everyone else's food and trying not to think about what a weird freaking night this had been.

* * *

The next morning, there was no irritating little brunette mosquito waiting for him in the basement when Hyde emerged from his room. Instead, it was just the guys, sitting around like always.

"So now Barb's got like eight stuffed ponies in the back of the shaggin' wagon!" Kelso was moaning. "Every time I get Laurie in there, all she's gonna see are these big, fluffy reminders of Barbara! And she told me last week that thinking about my other girlfriend doesn't get her in the mood. Which is weird, because thinking about Barbara _totally_ gets me in the mood. Y'know - 'cus she's got those huge knockers."

On his way past, Hyde cheerfully smacked Kelso on the back of the head.

"Would you shut up about my sister?" Eric moaned. "Man, I'm even more pissed at her than usual for ratting me out to Red about the cigarette. It's okay _now_ because Donna came clean - but that was _after_ I had to smoke that whole pack! I dont think my lungs will ever recover from that, you guys."

"Right, because you never ever inhale smoke recreationally," Hyde quipped as he fell down into his usual chair. Across from him, Fez was just plain beaming, and clearly not listening to a word anyone else was saying.

"Yesterday, in a hot tub, I touched my first American boob!"

"Congrats, man," Hyde said. You had to be happy for the kid. He was so desperate.

"How about you, Hyde, how did your date go?" Forman asked, grinning across. "Have we met the future Mrs Steven Hyde? The woman who will be providing you conjugal visits in your jail cell for years to come?"

"Nah," said Hyde simply, stretching his arms up above his head for a moment, a picture of nonchalance. "I wasn't into it."

"Really? I thought she seemed perfect for you!" Fez said. "You talked about all the same things I don't understand!"

"Nah, man, we had too much in common. It would've been like hooking up with myself. And let me tell you, I'm a good looking guy and all, but I wouldn't wanna _date_ me."

Apparently everyone else accepted this bluffed logic. Hyde sighed, and thought about Patty for a few more seconds. He'd kind of been hoping to dredge up some enthusiasm for calling her and asking her out again, but he was just as uninterested this morning as he had been the night before.

Oh well. Hyde reached into his pocket. He knew at least one way to take his mind off this.

"Gentlemen. Shall we light up?"

* * *

Later, after Hyde got off the easiest shift in history at the Fotohut - no customers had driven by and Leo had spent the whole time telling him the real reason the government wanted everyone to drink so much milk - he decided to go to the Hub. Mrs Forman was visiting her cousin for the night and Hyde really didn't trust the cooking of anyone else in the house, so he wanted to get a plate of fries for dinner instead. It seemed safer.

When he swung the door open, he didn't even hear the ding of the bell above him - because sat right there, alone, pouting into a compact mirror and oblivious to the world around her, was Jackie. She was so caught up in her own reflection she didn't even notice him until he spoke.

"Hey."

She looked up, and her face brightened.

"Oh, hi Steven!"

He felt awkward. Why the hell did he feel awkward? He was _always_ cool around chicks, and Jackie barely counted as a chick anyway since he had no interest in hooking up with her, right?

"I'm just, uh, getting some fries," he said, gesturing dumbly to the counter.

"I'm waiting for my dad to pick me up," she responded. "The rest of the pep squad went to the mall but Daddy wants to take me to a father-daughter dance tonight, so I couldn't go with them."

To Hyde, that whole sentence sounded like a nightmare, but there was excitement on Jackie's face. He'd gathered that her dad wasn't around much.

"Uh, cool," he said, and then turned around to the counter and got his fries. When he turned back, he paused for three of the longest seconds of his life. He was going to take his food, leave the Hub, get in his car and drive back to the Formans'. That was what he was going to do. He had no reason to linger.

Except -

 _Damnit_. Hyde slammed himself down into the seat opposite Jackie.

"So d'you have a fun day doing cartwheels or whatever?" he queried, setting his food down on the table in front of him. Jackie immediately snagged a fry.

"There was no cheer practice today," she told him. "Just an informal meeting to talk about the fact that Lainey wore _drainpipe jeans_ to school today." Hyde faked a gasp of horror but Jackie didn't seem to grasp the sarcasm. "I know! Well, obviously we had to talk about it. I mean, she's one of my closest friends, but if she keeps acting this crazy we may have to kick her off the squad."

"Jackie, do you ever think about _anything_ not related to fashion and high kicks?"

Jackie pondered it for a moment.

"Well, sure," she said, and then shot him a grin which was almost - _flirty_. "Sometimes, I think about boys."

And after a second, without any idea why he was doing it, Hyde found himself grinning back.

And why the hell was it that he'd spent last night with a girl who should've been perfect for him, but she'd never once managed to get him to smile like that? But there he was with someone who by all laws of nature he should rightfully hate, and all he could think about was the fact that his heart was beating just a bit faster than usual.

Okay. So maybe he could admit it to himself at least. He had just a _tiny_ bit of a creepy, morbid, entirely inexplicable crush on Jackie Burkhart.

* * *

 **a/n: so, there we go! hyde is beginning to accept he may have some feelings, even if he doesn't really understand them ;P please review and let me know what you thought of the chap, and i'll love you forever!**


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